Vengeance
by Laura Harkness
Summary: Rose will follow Ten anywhere, but will she follow him to the one place in the universe where she's no longer wanted? And how far will Jack go to avenge a wrongdoing when a friend is dealt a grievous blow? A tale of that dish best eaten cold: Vengeance.
1. Chapter 1

**VENGEANCE**

**Sixth in a series – the sequel to: 'Big Bang', 'Terraform', 'Evolution', 'Plague' and 'Revelations'. Standalone but its getting harder to write them that way so you may want to read the others. Or not...**

**Disclaimer: **Inspired by, dedicated to and in the greatest respect of Doctor Who and Torchwood.

**PROLOGUE**

Wil should have been there when the world exploded.

No, really! I suspect you're smirking but seriously, you see, she had a ticket.

Visiting family in Berlin, Wil Beinert had decided to attend a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic. Her little sister, Aloysia, was an oboist with the orchestra and Wil had been looking forward to the concert; a rare treat to watch and hear her sister play.

At an insanely early age Aloysia had picked up a recorder that had been left laying about the house and proved a prodigy. During her childhood she accumulated proficiency in other woodwinds and as a teenager she became a sought after member of various regional chamber groups.

It was a proud day for the Beinert family when Aloysia was engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic as their principal oboe. At only 24 years of age, she was extremely humble about her new, prestigious position as well as her astonishing artistry; her humility was one of numerous reasons she was adored by many.

Her playing was exemplified by the expression of extraordinarily high dynamic and timbral ranges, and her instrument's voice was always majestic and stately. Beyond that, the emotions she kept so carefully controlled in her personal life poured out unimpeded into her music.

She was equally gifted on both the modern oboe and the baroque. One of her most prized possessions had been a fragile historical instrument made in Germany during the late 17th century; usually displayed in a glass case in her apartment, she had recently played it for a recording of Telemann and Vivaldi pieces with The Salzburg Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Ah, dear reader. You've doubtless noticed the use of past tense – words like 'was' and 'had been' – when referring to Aloysia.

The evening of the concert Wil had unexpectedly been called away to a sick friend's bedside. It was an unwelcome situtation but a 'no brainer' in Wil's mind. There would be other opportunities to see her sister play, and in fact the Berlin Philharmonic would be performing at the Barbican Centre during their upcoming world tour. Wil fantasized about taking Jack and her other colleagues to the London concert and proudly showing off her precious little sister.

So Wil's ticket stayed unused in her bag that evening when, during the opening bars of Tchaikovsky's _Marche Slave_, the Berliner Philharmonie concert hall exploded, obliterating the orchestra, its conductor, and an audience of over 2000.

**ONE**

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (as they say)…

The Doctor and Rose retreated to what the Time Lord had declared "a happily benign planet." Slowly circling a lonely sun in a distant part of a remote galaxy, he'd characterized it as "safe, quiet and dull," and with no "space monsters." In fact, it had no sentient life whatsoever.

What it _did_ have were joyful little furry creatures with large shiny round eyes living in the tall grasses near where the TARDIS had taken up residence. Rose had christened them "hamsters" although they were not at all even remotely like hamsters ("As good a name as any!" The Doctor pronounced).

They made a sound somewhere between a chirp and a purr, and Rose soon discovered if she sat quietly enough for long enough they would eventually mosey up to her, happily settle into the various nooks and crannies of her body, and fall asleep. She found strange comfort in that – sitting in the sun, hosting one or more small slumbering creatures, and sometimes closing her own eyes and dozing off, too.

It was blissfully peaceful.

For The Doctor peace and comfort were not so easily attained.

Rose and he had discussed at length, perhaps _ad naseum_, what had happened to him on the Shrake homeworld. Thankfully, at least in Rose's mind, The Doctor did not clearly remember much of what surely had been a terrible and terrifying experience.

It was a blessing, Rose believed, to not be plagued by horrors beyond imagining.

But while the florid bruises slowly dissipated and he regained some of his lost weight, the color in his cheeks failed to return. And his eyes, instead of their usual bright curiosity and high humor, were dark and sad – even haunted at times – haunted especially at those times he thought she wasn't looking.

Rose noticed he spent a lot of time by himself, and he slept more than he ever had in the past. Never overtly excluding her, he would go for long walks on his own – walks sometimes lasting many hours. Once he was gone all night and Rose became frantic with worry. He returned at sunrise the next morning, full of apologies that time had simply gotten away from him while he was walking beneath the constellations of their current home.

Chin resting on open palm, he would sit alone for long periods of time in the TARDIS, his legs spread out across the floor and his back against a wall. To be sure, he was looking inward instead of outward, and Rose found herself wondering what it was he saw.

In their new open environment of full disclosure she knelt down beside him on the floor one day and asked what he was 'staring' at.

"Nothing," he morosely responded. "I don't see much at all. If anything, it's emptiness. Not darkness or light. Not good or bad, happy or sad, right or wrong. Everything is just gray… Just a lot of nothingness…

"Ah, Rose, I don't know; I don't feel any pressing need to over-analyze or push myself in one direction or another. In fact, I don't seem to feel much at all." He inhaled slowly, paused and then continued.

"It's just that I'm so tired and _this_," he opened his arms wide and looked down at himself, "seems to be the only thing I have the energy to do right now."

She looked at him, smiled, and stroked his hair.

At first, and for quite a long while, she hopefully thought the sleep, the solitary walks, and what she imagined was meditation, were all part of his healing process.

But then she became less sure as further signs of recovery failed to materialize.

So Rose found herself, one sunny day, laying on her back in an aromatic field not far from the TARDIS, her knees up in the air and a 'hamster' snuggled between her waist and the inside of her elbow, wondering what she could possibly do with a clinically depressed Time Lord.

During one of their earlier conversations The Doctor had told of his concern for her after they'd left Wil for dead in the Brave Woman galaxy. He had known finding "outside" help for Rose's declining mental health would be impossible, and that it was up to him alone to make sure she got the support and care she needed.

It had been an odd and uncomfortable discussion but eye-opening nonetheless. Rose had never seen things in quite that light before. Most people had friends or family they could go to when they needed to talk about their troubles. For her, she could count the number of such people on one hand – in fact, on two fingers of one hand. Besides The Doctor himself, first she had her mum, and second she had Jack. Neither of them, for wildly different reasons, were ideal confidants.

The Doctor, as far as she knew, had even fewer. Other than her, he had Jack. And Jack, because of his intense and complicated relationship with the Time Lord, was a potential land mine when it came to being considered an intimate.

It was not as if they couldn't trust Jack Harkness, Rose believed. It was more like Jack couldn't trust himself when it came to The Doctor.

Then Rose remembered Wil Beinert. In the grand scheme of things, she hadn't known her for very long, and their history had been nothing if not complex. Still, when she reflected on the woman, the resultant feelings were overwhelmingly warm and pleasant. A good sign; perhaps Wil could be counted the third in Rose's small and highly prized group of close friends.

It was unclear whether Wil could be included as part of a similar group for The Doctor. While not truly ambivalent, his feelings for her were intricate and multifaceted. Rose had trouble imagining The Doctor confiding in Wil. But she'd been known to be wrong in the past…

Rose sighed and gently shifted her position, trying not to disturb her slumbering little friend.

In the end, the next move would have to be The Doctor's. She would not push or prod him. Her job, right at the moment, was to provide comfort and reassurance. She closed her eyes and found herself wondering what he was currently doing…

As if reading her mind, her furry companion looked up, chirped softly and ran off into the grass. Rose stood, stretched, and headed back towards the ship.


	2. Chapter 2

**VENGEANCE**

**TWO**

Captain Jack Harkness had known about the explosion the moment it happened. One of the perks of living in the Torchwood Hub, he was invariably and exquisitely "plugged" into earth events. He knew about the disaster even before the myriad countries of the world raised their threat levels to "red" or "high" or whatever the maximum setting was.

His heart was thumping in his chest and his hands were shaking as he grabbed his Blackberry and punched up Wil's number. He'd been aware of her arrangements for the evening, that she'd be attending the concert. In his panicked tunnel-vision all he could see was the phone's display as it attempted to connect; Jack held his breath – it felt like it was taking forever. But then, amazingly, he got a connection! Fearing to even hope, he tentatively held the device to his ear and was enormously relieved to hear Wil's familiar voice as she took the call.

"Wil?" was all he could manage to croak.

"Jack? What's wrong?" she responded.

"Where are you?"

"I'm with a sick friend; sorry, it happened so fast that I didn't have a chance to tell you I'd changed my plans. Jack, what's going on?"

Jack's relief was mixed with horror. 'Oh my God,' he thought, 'she doesn't know.'

It was one of the things he was best at – thinking fast on his feet – but for a long moment he felt frozen in time, unsure, and sick to death.

"Wil, listen to me. Something has happened. Something bad. You're not going to want to do this but you need to go immediately to the safe house there in Berlin. Tell no one where you are going. You know the procedure. Wait for me; I'll be there as soon as I can. Do you understand?"

Torchwood wisely kept safe houses in all the major cities of the world.

Wil was confused, but the power in Jack's commanding voice, full of military authority and confidence, was difficult to ignore.

"Jack?" It was a question he didn't have the time to answer.

"Go. Now. You hear me?"

"Yes." He heard the concurrence in her voice required for the sake of his own sanity.

"Good. You have your orders. I'll see you shortly."

He killed the call and spun round, looking at the monitors, which were lighting up like Christmas trees. The planet's major powers were reacting as if it had been a terrorist attack. Jack didn't believe in coincidences and wasn't at all convinced.

He phoned Ianto Jones as he grabbed his always-ready duffel and walked out the door, "Get the team together. I want all of you back at the Hub ASAP. Then call the airport and have my plane made ready, I'm going on a trip."


	3. Chapter 3

**VENGEANCE**

**THREE**

Assistant Director of Planetary Security Ven k'atesh had survived.

In fact, quite a few of the Shrake had survived.

This was partly because the Shrake, being an insectoid race, had a keen ability to withstand and recover from grave damage to their bodies. Appendages, antennae, mouthparts, wings could all be lost and at least partially regenerated. Often times the replacement parts would be not quite "good as new", but they were nonetheless adequate to provide for a long and useful life.

The Assistant Director had survived the first assault on the compound during the appropriation of the prisoner. That was not totally surprising as the attack had been tightly focused and primarily confined to the facility holding the detainee. The main compound itself had sustained only minimal damage, and it just so happened that's where Ven k'atesh had been at the time of the initial incursion.

But what followed was the devastating punishment handed out by their "allies" – retribution for the loss of a very valuable asset: the prisoner. As Ven k'atesh had previously warned, the removal of the Time Lord had indeed been an extremely bad thing for the Shrake homeworld. Many of those caught unprotected above ground were killed in the ensuing planetary-wide destruction.

Ven k'atesh had also survived this second, far more disastrous assault. But survival had come at a dreadful cost – while much of the physical damage sustained had been repaired through medical care and self-restoration, the Assistant Director had permanently lost an eye. It was lucky; such a disability was not considered cause for euthanasia. Other survivors had been less fortunate.

And yes, as stated earlier, many Shrake survived because of their ability to regenerate and recover.

But Ven k'atesh had _also_ survived in large part due to an all-consuming desire for vengeance.

While very little of a planet remained for which to carry on as Assistant Director of Planetary Security, Ven k'atesh had pledged to run to ground the criminal who'd liberated the Time Lord and by that singularly wicked act caused the almost complete destruction of the Shrake homeworld.

'Time Lord,' thought Ven k'atesh darkly, wishing the whole bloody mess had never happened. But it had. The prisoner was blameless, that was well appreciated. His rescuer was not. There had been no attempt to negociate – not that negociation would've been profitable, to be sure. The Shrake would never have voluntarily released their prisoner. But if they had been given warning, they could have immediately taken action to hand him over to their allies and thereby protect their world. Instead, thousands had died and thousands more had suffered.

No, it was the Time Lord's savior that must now be punished. Even if it was the last thing Ven k'atesh would ever do, retribution would have its day. Nor were the Shrake without allies and accomplices in this endeavor. The Assistant Director had not hesitated at recruiting some of the same races which had nearly destroyed the planet. They recognized, just as Ven k'atesh knew, that through the seizure of his liberator the former captive may yet be ensnared. The criminal had been easily enough identified and traced. A terrible plan, violent and fierce, was put into place to kill if not capture the culprit and perhaps, if fortune prevailed, trap and recover the former prisoner.

So Ven k'atesh moved single-mindedly in the shadows and waited, manipulating new and old allies while they in turn manipulated others, including possibly and ironically the Assistant Director of Planetary Security...


	4. Chapter 4

**VENGEANCE**

**FOUR**

To Jack's utter amazement, Wil was actually inside the safe house when he arrived a few hours later.

He'd spent much of the trip ruminating over what he'd do if he found her missing. _When_ he found her missing. In fact, he'd spent the entire time obsessing about how pissed off he'd be. He was absolutely certain she would not follow his orders. He was so sure he'd have to go hunting for her.

So, he breathed a secret sigh of relief when he entered the safe house, but he was also slightly embarrassed having wasted so much time thinking about _not_ finding Wil.

And there she was, sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him.

His first thought upon seeing her was, oddly enough, about eye makeup. To be precise, he thought that if she'd been the kind of woman who wore it (and of course she wasn't), then her mascara would have been running down her face and she'd look an unholy mess.

Instead, she looked like an angel – red, unruly curls haloing her pale, drawn face and huge green eyes.

She sat alone, crying. On the table was an untouched cup of tea.

Jack's heart flew to her but he held back and waited, standing in the doorway. 'Different people deal with grief in different ways,' he thought. He wasn't sure how Wil would deal with it. He eyed the cup warily, imagining it soaring towards his head…

She did nothing, as it turned out, other than sit and stare at him.

After several minutes he finally whispered, "Wil?"

She jerked as if waking from slumber. Her eyes refocused on his, and she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Jack?" she said in a tiny, child-like voice.

That's when he went to her, wrapping her in his arms and pressing his cheek against the top of her head. Her body shook as they both cried, and he gently rocked her back and forth.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured. "I'm so sorry."

Eventually he felt her inhale sharply and then she pulled away and met his gaze.

"Who did this?" she asked, her green eyes suddenly turning cold in their red, swollen lids. "And did it have something to do with me?"

Jack sighed, pulled out a chair and sat down.

"We don't know. It's always possible. Tosh and Owen are on their way here and will be heading straight to ground zero when they arrive; we'll know more when we hear from them. So far, it's unusual to say the least. The authorities are claiming it's terrorism, but I'm not certain of that. Not certain at all…"

Wil looked at him, reading his face as clearly as someone might read a book.

"What do _you_ think?" she asked him.

"Oh God, Wil. I know that not every bloody awful thing that happens on this forsaken planet is about Torchwood or me, but I have a sneaking suspicion someone is trying to get our attention. And I'm afraid it's going to be a race as to whether they find us first or we find them."

Her tears had started falling again.

"Jack, I wanna know… Do you swear…? "

"Every damn day," he interrupted her with a thin smile.

She shook her head, not amused. "No, I mean, if… When…" She couldn't go on.

He looked at her for a long moment and nodded. "Yes, I swear to you I'll hunt them down and kill them." He felt his own tears start up again. _Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold._


	5. Chapter 5

**VENGEANCE**

**FIVE**

At over 900 years of age, The Doctor had seen it all, heard it all, felt it all. He'd also experienced just about anything anyone could throw at him.

That was one of the curses of being so long-lived. There was very little that could be _new_ to him. He'd been held captive before, and he'd been tortured before. And he'd always recovered. Events like that rolled off his back like water off a duck. He catalogued them and filed them away in his Time Lord mind like all the other episodes of his life: useful information when needed, but not worth dwelling on.

But this was the first time he could remember that he felt empty without his antagonist. He missed his captor and suffered terribly over the fate that had befallen Ven k'atesh.

And to make matters worse, he was embarrassed and ashamed about his feelings.

At over 900 years of age, he'd also been around the psychological block a few times. Hell, he'd even met Freud (that's not saying he'd liked the man) and Jung (he'd liked him a lot more than Freud). He knew all about Stockholm Syndrome and Trauma-Bonding – where victims become loyal or even emotionally attached to their victimizers. Intellectually he was well aware of such psychological responses. But in his hearts, he seemed to be incapable of moving beyond the sadness and loss he was feeling.

As foolish as it seemed, there were times he would look at Rose and wish she was Ven k'atesh. The desire was horrifying and disgusting, but nonetheless he kept returning to it. Even worse, a small part of him, a tiny little part, was starting to deeply resent the fact that she was there and that she was not Ven k'atesh. The whole situation mortified him and was becoming intolerable.

The two of them were sitting in the sun, their backs against the TARDIS, when he could do nothing but admit the truth.

"Rose," he said, closing his eyes tightly to stem the tears, "I'm really screwed up."

She instinctively reached out and took his hand. Realizing that "I know" was probably not a helpful thing for her to say at the time, she kept quiet, waiting for him to continue.

Which he did.

"I'm really screwed up and I don't know what to do about it. I don't think I'm getting better on my own. I'm trying, really I am. I'm so sorry. I know I must seem unfamiliar and pathetic to you. It's a wonder that you even want to stay with me. I feel terrible. I feel like… Rose, I feel like I need to go back there, to where I was held captive. I need to see it and find out what happened to them." _I need to find out what happened to Ven k'atesh._

"I honestly don't know if going there will help me or not. But it's become all I can think about – this insane desire to go back. I'm starting to feel I have no choice…"

He lowered his head and covered his eyes with his free hand.

"Doctor," Rose responded after a moment. "You're a hero; you're the farthest thing from pathetic in the entire universe. My God, you spend your life performing altruistic and unselfish acts of bravery, selflessly defying injury and death, and never asking for anything from anyone in return. You deserve to be able to feel any way you want. And you _always_ have a choice. Don't believe for a second your free will has been taken from you. It hasn't. You are free to do what you want and travel where you want. And that includes going back to the Shrake homeworld, if you desire. And if that _is_ what you want, then good, but I'm coming with you."

The Doctor looked up at his Companion and shook his head, "I wasn't going to ask you to do that."

"You didn't think you could stop me, did you?"

"You? No… probably not."

She leaned low towards his face, gently removed his hand from his eyes and looked deeply into them.

"And you weren't thinking about leaving me here, were you?"

"No, never."

"Well then, it's settled. Except for one question: do you want to go fetch Jack first?"

The Doctor thought for a short time. "Nah, we don't need him."

"Famous last words," Rose said under her breath. The Doctor heard but didn't comment.


	6. Chapter 6

**VENGEANCE**

**SIX**

Wil was going crazy at the safe house.

If Jack had taken the opportunity to consider that she would actually follow his orders and be waiting for him there, he just might've anticipated the difficulties she was now presenting.

As it was, he was having a hard time dealing with her.

She had asked him at least a million times if they could leave. No, he would reply patiently each time, they could not.

Irritatingly, she couldn't sit still. She paced around the house mumbling indistinctly or, horror of horrors, humming the music from some or another God-awful Shostakovich quartet (Jack hated atonal music).

And most perplexingly, she kept going into the kitchen, opening the cupboards, and rummaging through them – although she denied she was either hungry or thirsty.

Tosh and Owen were reporting back from the site of the explosion. The Torchwood staff was not given precedence in the investigation, and that was understandable. They were treated as just another law enforcement agency: they were supplied with any and all information as it was obtained, and provided with assistance as required. Security Services from the U.K. and the U.S. were already involved in the investigation, along with the German _Bundespolizei_, Interpol, and Europol.

All this was of little comfort to Wil, who wanted to get out of the house and into the field in the worst possible way. Jack's heart broke for her, but protocol was protocol and for the time being they would err on the side of caution: if the incident was somehow related to a specific targeting of Wil, as unlikely as it seemed, the policy was clear – she would have to stay in hiding until more information was acquired.

Needless to say, Jack was antsy too, but very early on he'd decided he would be the one to keep Wil company. He'd been temped to bring in Gwen or Ianto, but they were best left back at the Hub in Cardiff; at least for now. If one of their alternative theories was true and the threat was aimed more generally at Torchwood itself, it would be unwise if not idiotic to assemble the entire team together in the same city, thereby providing a convenient single target.

Listening to Tosh and Owen describe the carnage had upset and further agitated Will. The entire building and its occupants had been annihilated. One odd thing was there wasn't even the slightest trace of explosive residue. Moreover it seemed to be an extremely surgical detonation; nothing else in the vicinity was damaged and beneath the debris there was no huge crater. The authorities didn't have a clue what to make of that.

"They have no idea what they're dealing with," reported Tosh. "And to be honest, I don't either."

Jack leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and stared at the conference phone. "I suspect it was some sort of directed-energy weapon, maybe a particle beam or a maser. Whatever, its power requirements would've been enormous."

"Jack," Tosh interrupted him. "What you're implying then is that the cause was not terrestrial,"

"You are correct."

Jack glanced sideways at Wil, who had turned even paler. Her fists were clenched in tight balls on her lap and she was ever-so-slightly rocking forward and backward.

"Keep at it. Report back in an hour. Ianto, Gwen?"

"Yes, we're still here, sir," Ianto replied. Jack's heart leapt just a tiny bit at the sound of his voice.

"Start working on the database. Let's put together a list of suspects. Go in reverse chronological order."

"Jack," it was Gwen. "Considering the timing, there is a rather obvious…"

"Yes, I know," Jack cut her off. "But let's try to keep an open mind for now. I don't want to place false limits on our thinking. For the time being, all options are open."

"Right."

"Okay then. Same as Tosh and Owen, call back in an hour."

Jack punched the disconnect button and turned towards Wil, who appeared to not be breathing.

"Wil," he said. "I know what you're thinking."

"HOW COULD YOU?" she lashed out at him and he instinctively recoiled from the verbal blow.

The Captain felt a flash of anger. With what happened to his family… he knew _exactly_ how she felt. But it wasn't his family they were talking about, and he never discussed his personal tragedy with anyone. _Ever._

"Because," he lowered his voice to a near-whisper, "if it were me, I'd be thinking the same thing. First, you've made up your mind as to who the perpetrators are. Second, you want to go out, now, and get payback. Third, you're regretting giving up the Time-Lord-slash-Terraformer-slash-God-knows-what-else powers that were bequeathed to you."

She looked at him in surprise.

He smiled wanly, "Am I right?"

She nodded mutely.

"Well, I'm here to tell you something that you already know – that it's okay to be angry, Wil. In fact it's healthy. But we're going to do this the right way. And when we're sure, we'll go after them as a unified team of humans, not as a vengeful alien goddess." He chuckled softly at the image that flashed in his mind.

"So don't get all wacko on me, kid; we're going to need you. And stay strong, I know it's hard but there will be time to mourn later, I promise, after we take care of the bad guys."

Wil nodded, "You swear?"

"Every damn day…"

This time she smiled back at him, ever so slightly.


	7. Chapter 7

**VENGEANCE**

**SEVEN**

A Torchwood safe house was not an ordinary safe house.

Similar in concept to safe houses used by various law enforcement agencies across the planet, Torchwood's was different because of its technology.

Inside the house, Jack felt safe indeed.

First and foremost, it had a graviton-based force field, right out of Star Trek: an invisible, impermeable shield extending from the building's foundation to above the roof. The shield could disperse or deflect most known energy-based weaponry as well as solid ballistic weapons. Even better than Star Trek, when it absorbed or blocked attacking forces, the activity itself was imperceptible. The force field and its machinations went totally unseen.

It was a perfect defensive weapon, but not the only weapon at Jack Harkness's disposal...

Second, the safe house had what was in effect an armory – in fact several of them – including arsenals of weapons that used advanced alien technology and were, again, straight out of science fiction. There were plasma rifles, disruptors, and lasers, as well as horrific, unrecognizable anti-matter weapons. In addition to the alien tech there were plenty of Jack's favorites: traditional, but no less effective, earth ballistic weapons.

Third, it was "off the grid", meaning that it generated its own power, water, and other services. So besides being invincible, it was standalone: the city, if not the country could collapse around it and the safe house would remain intact and viable. Again, all thanks to better living through alien technology, its occupants could withstand a protracted siege. Perhaps not indefinitely, but certainly long enough to call in help, even if that help had to come from far, far away.

And that takes us to four. The safe house was a communications haven. Hooked up and online with multiple redundancies via the Torchwood satellite network, the occupants had full access to all the same information sources as the Hub back in Cardiff.

Finally, five, when all else failed, there was a self destruct. When Jack inherited the safe house network, the self destruct was the one concept that had been left out. He remedied that immediately. And in normal Jack Harkness style, he remedied it with panache.

There were actually multiple self-destructs. The first would simply, painlessly and instantly extinguish all living souls within the safe house, leaving the building and the surrounding area intact. The second would precisely obliterate the safe house and anyone or anything inside of it. The third… well the third kicked things up a notch or two. Imagine Jack and his tendency towards flamboyance, and then think about how he might design such a function – a level three self-destruct. Whatever you imagine, then multiply it by a hundred, or maybe even by a thousand times. There, you _might_ have it.

Finally, there were the various personal weapons that Jack either carried on his body or along with him in his ever-present duffel. Among them was his mysterious leather wristband, and no one other than Jack, not even The Doctor knew, really, what it was capable of doing.

And that is why, as he sat watching Wil sleep fitfully on the couch, Jack felt safe.

They were as well protected in the safe house as they'd be in the Hub, as they'd be anywhere on the planet. There was even an underground tunnel, and connected to it a basement area that held an escape vehicle. It was a conventionally armored Humvee rather than an inter-stellar spaceship like the Sunjammer, but the car would do in a pinch. Still, Jack imagined; having a small spaceship wouldn't necessarily be a bad addition to the safe houses…

The Captain caught himself drowsing and sat up with a start, looking at his watch. The team was late calling in. He grunted softly with surprise and hit the call button on the conference phone, but the dialing display didn't appear. Shaking his head, he hit the button a few more times and then gave the phone a few hard taps. There was nothing.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tea in one of the half empty cups on the table begin to ever-so slightly vibrate. Hearing a soft sound, he refocused across the room in time to see Wil raise her head and look at him. "Earthquake?" she asked.

"I wish." He answered darkly.


	8. Chapter 8

**VENGEANCE**

**EIGHT**

"Shit," growled Owen.

When they'd not been able to get through to Jack, they "borrowed" (read: stole) an extremely fast-looking police vehicle someone foolishly had left unlocked at the blast site, keys in the ignition.

Signal lights and siren fully activated, Owen drove like a madman and Tosh, peering at her GPS, tried to keep up as navigator and yell directions over the howling engine and screaming tires as they raced to the safe house.

They found it… gone.

Instead there was just an empty, vacant lot.

"Shit," growled Owen again. "We're going to have to call Gwen, tell her we've lost Jack and Wil…"

"And the safe house."

"Right, Tosh, and the safe house.

"Shit!" Owen took aim and kicked a rock into the space where the house had been.

Tosh was already scanning the area. "No explosive residue; at least there's that," she said.

"What, is that supposed to make me feel better?" Owen snapped at her.

"Well, at least maybe THEY'RE NOT DEAD." Tosh was getting exasperated with Owen. It always happened when they were cooped up together for any long amount of time… longer than, say, five minutes. So far things had gone pretty smoothly between them; this event was likely to change all that.

But she knew it was up to her to keep him focused. If she didn't he'd soon be uncontrollable and not at all helpful.

"I'm seeing some odd quantum-level residual disturbances."

"Huh?" he'd been in the process of calling Gwen and Ianto, but stopped.

Tosh gasped and blinked at him. "I think they've been teleported."

"You mean, as in 'Beam me up, Scotty'?"

"Yeah, that's what I think."

"You've got to be joking."

"No, I'm not. I'd never joke about a thing like this."

Owen had to stifle a snicker. Tosh could be so funny at times, but totally _unintentionally_ funny.

"You're saying you think they were dematerialized and moved somewhere else? Jack, Wil, and the entire freaking safe house?!"

She continued to glare at her scanner, lost in thought and apparently ignoring him, but then she looked up and nodded slowly, almost dreamily.

"Yes… That's exactly what I'm saying." Abruptly her face changed and she looked around nervously; the naked fear in her eyes scared Owen more than anything else he'd seen in recent memory.

She roused herself as if from a trance. "We need to get back to Cardiff right away. I might be able to figure out where they were taken, but I can't do it from here."

"Right," said Owen, gently herding her towards the car. "Call Gwen and update her, I'll phone the airport and get the plane ready. We'll be at the Hub before you know it." He gave her a quick little one-armed hug, but the terror evident in her eyes remained.


	9. Chapter 9

**VENGEANCE**

**NINE**

"Crap," snarled Gwen as she ended the conversation with Tosh.

"Why is it that people always freaking _disappear_ on us?" She glared accusatorially at Ianto, who shrugged his shoulders in response.

He never quite knew what to do with her when she got into a state like this. Now_ Jack_ he could handle. Wil, Tosh, and even Owen, to a greater or lesser extent, too, he could control, or at least direct, with his well-honed 'management' skills. But, Gwen…

Gwen scared him. Beneath her rather disciplined, empathetic and supportive exterior there was something ominously cold, dark, and unpredictable. He held his breath and eyed her warily. To show too much weakness right now would be like morphing into the hapless, helpless lamb before the wolf. She'd eat him for breakfast.

He moved to his computer. "If Tosh is right, and she almost always is, then we need to expand the parameters of the database search Jack has us conducting. We need to start looking for teleportation capability."

Turning his head, Ianto looked at Gwen. He was relieved to see her face had relaxed just a bit. She was thinking instead of purely emoting.

"And what about wormhole manipulation?" she asked. "Tosh also mentioned that could be involved as well."

He frowned deeply as he nodded. "You're right, but that would be really, really bad news for us because it means adding FTL capacity into the mix. If true, God knows where in the universe Jack and Wil might've been taken, and how in the hell we'll be able to get them back."

And while it wasn't intentional on his part – at least he didn't think it was – just like _that_ Gwen's caretaker instincts kicked in and she gently laid a hand on his arm.

"Wherever they are we'll find them. We always do."

Ianto silently prayed she was right, and that this situation wasn't going to be the exception to the rule.


	10. Chapter 10

**VENGEANCE**

**TEN**

"Ow!" yelped The Doctor.

Rose heard and went to go check on him.

They had not departed The-Planet-of-the-Hamsters immediately.

She'd had been relieved to realize that the delay was not due to anything worrisome. Quite the contrary, the decision to return to the Shrake homeworld seemed to have removed some of the darkness from the Time Lord's countenance. He appeared more animated and was, almost astonishingly, busily working on a project.

He was wearing his glasses and had spread out a plethora of small tools and jars of different colored materials on the table over which he was standing.

He had his finger in his mouth; apparently he'd just poked himself with one of his implements.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Ah! I'm building us some protection."

"Protection against what?"

"Well, I've told you about my, erm, 'difficulties' on the planet, right? I don't intend to revisit them so I'm fabricating preventatives…"

He looked up at her and smiled briefly. In her mind she took a quick snapshot of the smile – it had been days since she'd seen anything like it.

Then the awareness of what he was implying hit.

"But wait, that means…"

"Oh yes, I expect we may run into a Shrake or two."

"I thought you said your departure resulted in their destruction?"

He shot her a quick, disapproving look and then went back to his work.

"No, that's not quite what I said. Use your head and think."

'Ah,' she thought. 'He _is_ recovering – he's got some of his blasted arrogance back.' Her ego could do without the condescension, but bless him anyways…

While he continued to work, she silently thought back, remembering...

Jack had rescued The Doctor by snatching him away from the Shrake, and the TARDIS had swept them all away from the planet before the precipitant onslaught.

Just as the Captain was returning, carrying his precious cargo, Wil had detected the approaching ships on the monitor.

"Incoming!" she'd screamed at Rose. "We're gonna need to get the hell out of here, fast!"

Rose had hoisted the gun she was holding and kicked open the doors of the TARDIS. As she scanned the area she saw a dark figure carrying a heavy burden and realized it was Jack.

"Hurry Jack!" she'd yelled at him and began laying down cover fire. Her gun's recoil was enormous and she was struggling to keep upright. "We need to leave!" she'd added, perhaps redundantly. But he hustled and leave they did.

Afterward, all that Wil would say was that the retaliatory force was massive and that she'd been scared to death of getting caught in it.

The Doctor had later admitted to Rose he'd felt guilty about what had happened to the Shrake.

"But they brought it all on themselves," she'd argued.

He shook his head in response. "It's complicated. Don't forget what they were initially reacting to: the loss of their off-world colony. They responded irrationally by seeking revenge, to be sure, but they were also being manipulated by sinister external forces. They weren't blameless, but did they deserve to be exterminated? I think not..."

In turn, she had shaken her head in disagreement, recalling how badly hurt he had been, and how close she'd been to losing him. In her mind the Shrake deserved what they got, no matter how horrible it was.

Back in the present, she now looked at him in surprise. "You never said they'd all been destroyed."

"No, I didn't. And I suspect it was purposeful."

"What? That some of them were left alive?"

"Yep."

Rose was silent for a minute, trying to connect the dots. During her time with The Doctor she'd had to learn to think hard – sometimes so hard that it hurt. Going from point A to B was usually difficult enough, but getting from B to C and then D… it made her head swim.

"They left some of the Shrake alive because they're still after you?"

"Brilliant!" He stood upright and looked at her in triumph.

She smiled brightly and said "Thanks!"

He blinked at her, momentarily confused, but then raised his hands; in his fingers he held two tiny bright orange objects.

"What? No, I mean these! They're done and I'm brilliant!"

Rose rolled her eyes. No doubt about it, he was back.

"Okay, what are they?"

Improbably, he stuck them up his nose – one in each nostril.

"Like I said, they're protection – olfactory blocks. I'm not absolutely certain you'll need them, but I know I will and it's best to be prepared!"

They made him talk funny, like, well, like he had a cold and his nose was stuffed.

"We've also got these."

He reached down and picked up two similar looking plugs, although they were green, and stuffed them into his ears.

"They're ear protection," he said quite loudly.

Rose shook her head. "I thought you were building us some sort of weapon."

"What?" he said, pointing his index fingers at his ears. "I can't hear a thing."

She scowled at him and he removed the ear plugs.

"Green for ears, orange for nose," he grinned wickedly. "It's best if you don't mix them up!"

He slid a book across the table towards her. "You should study this."

"What is it?"

"It's a manual of military hand and arm signals. They work great when you don't want to be heard, or if you can't hear. Memorize them and remember when we're on the move we need to establish eye contact every ten or fifteen seconds, in case one of us is trying to signal."

"Right," she sighed, wondering if he was trying to scare her off.

'Well, good luck with that,' she thought to herself.


	11. Chapter 11

**VENGEANCE**

**ELEVEN**

"Fuck!" hissed Jack.

It had been pitch dark for a few moments, although it felt longer.

Now the main power was cutting out and in. When it was off, the house's emergency lighting would bathe them in a dull red glow.

Jack was standing at the table, palms on its surface, looking at Wil, who had raised herself off the couch. The main power cut back in and the monitors popped and crackled to life. Wil quickly moved to one – it happened to be displaying video from an external camera.

"Uh-oh, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, for starters, it's no longer daylight. I may be wrong, but as I recall…"

"Right," Jack looked at his watch. "It's just after thirteen-hundred Central European Summer Time – it shouldn't be dark out."

The red lights flickered on again and the monitors went dead. Their eyes had to readjust to the dim light.

"Where do you think we are?" Wil asked.

Jack shook his head. "I have no idea. How do you think we got here?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe matter transmission?"

"You mean, as in…"

"Yeah, 'Beam me up Scotty'."

"Wow…

"Wow! I guess we've discovered a weakness in the safe house network."

Jack filed away this new information for future reference, but then thought of something else.

"Um, forgive me for asking, but you didn't do this, did you?"

Wil smiled at him. The first real smile he'd seen on her face since he arrived.

"No, unfortunately not. I gave all that up." _Damn it_.

"Right, well, that's a relief for me at any rate…"

The red lights were still on. Jack wondered if the main power was now off permanently.

"What do you think we should do?" Wil asked him.

Jack was just about to answer her when a third voice joined in the conversation.

It was a computer-generated voice, and it was Very Loud.

"The male," it said. "Give us the male and the female will be released unharmed."

"You have got to be joking," Wil whispered.

"No," the third voice boomed humorlessly.

"Why do you want me?" asked Jack.

"You are a criminal and will be punished."

"Punished for what?"

"You have…" The next few words were garbled. "…to deliberate; if you refuse you will both be destroyed."

"What?" said Jack. "What do you mean? How long do we have? That didn't make any sense!"

The voice was silent.

After a few moments the emergency lights went out and they were once again in total darkness.

"This just keeps getting better and better," groaned Jack.


	12. Chapter 12

**VENGEANCE**

**TWELVE**

Tosh and Owen had rushed back to the Hub.

As she hunted for a way to locate Jack and Wil, Tosh listened while Ianto and Gwen reported the results from their database search.

"The Torchwood database itself has no information on races that have developed teleport capabilities," said Gwen. "But The Doctor has provided us with parts of his Gallifreyan database; just select portions mind you, as we don't have the capacity to store the entire thing. And regardless he probably wouldn't want us to have the whole thing, anyway. But in it there's a reference to the Voord. The Doctor encountered them as one of his earlier regenerations on a planet called Marinus."

Ianto picked up the story. "The Doctor fought with and defeated the Voord on behalf of the society of Marinus, and in doing so was sent on a sort of quest using a teleportation device. There's no indication that the Voord were totally wiped out, or that they didn't subsequently assimilate the transport technology."

"The Time Lords themselves mastered what they called transmat technology," continued Gwen. "But if we're to believe The Doctor, they must be excluded from any list of possible suspects because they no longer exist. In yet another incarnation at the end of the twenty first century The Doctor came up against a militant Martian race…"

"Martian as in _Mars_?" Owen interrupted, scowling.

Gwen ignored him.

"A militant Martian race that also had teleportation capabilities. He fought them and foiled their attempted invasion of earth. That's all we were able to find, just those two cases, discounting the Time Lords themselves."

"What about the Enterprise?" Owen snarkily offered.

Gwen rolled her eyes but Ianto flashed him a grin. A little humor was always a welcome thing as far as Ianto Jones was concerned. He was trying to come up with a clever repartee when Tosh gasped.

All three turned to look at her.

"I know where they've taken Jack and Wil," she shook her head.

"This advanced alien tech requires massive amounts of energy and leaves all kinds of traces if you know exactly…"

"Oh, get on with it," snarled Owen.

Tosh blushed.

"Gwen, you nailed it during our last conversation with Jack. It's the Shrake." On the main screen she displayed a familiar star chart, and overlaying an all too memorable planet was a big red 'X'.

"Oh my God," murmured Ianto, shaking his head. "But they don't possess teleport tech do they?"

"No," answered Gwen. "Not according to the Torchwood database, although we still don't understand how they nabbed The Doctor. But remember what Wil told us: they weren't working alone then. We can assume they're not working alone _now_. So maybe the Voord?"

"I don't know that it really matters," Tosh responded, shaking her head. "The Shrake potentially have lots of allies, we already know that…"

"Well, so do we!" declared Ianto. The other three all turned and looked at him inquisitively.

"We do, don't we? Have allies?" he asked sounding less sure of himself.

"We've got The Doctor, at least. Let me see…" said Tosh as she punched a few more keys. "I think we can still trace him, too…

"Oh no," after a moment she pointed to the star chart. Overlaying the big red 'X' that was overlaying the Shrake homeworld there was a cute little rectangular blue box.

"Damn it," hissed Owen. "We need to get us some other allies."


	13. Chapter 13

**VENGEANCE**

**THIRTEEN**

He was trying to stay calm for her.

It wasn't that Jack was afraid of what would happen to him. He did not fear death, be it threatened, real or repeated.

But he did have a fear of the unknown. He simply did not like not knowing. And at the moment there were a whole lot of unknowns: he didn't know where they were, when they were, or who had taken them.

Like all the other technology in the house, his wristband had ceased to function. Oddly, though, a small penlight he carried in one of his pockets still worked and so the two of them, sitting together on the sofa, weren't totally in the dark. At least literally…

Figuratively it was a different matter.

They sat quietly for a long time…

It might be said they were meditating there side-by-side on the couch, their minds drifting among the planets and stars of their personal universes. How long they sat is not known, but after some interval had elapsed, they become aware of each other's presence.

Finally, Jack spoke.

"I think I should go out there and you stay here."

"No way."

"Yeah way."

"Jack, that is stupid."

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"No, I'm calling your plan stupid."

"Yeah, right, okay. Do you have a better one?"

There was no forthcoming reply.

Jack hated not knowing so much that he would prefer _anything_ to it.

Plus, this was getting really boring…

He stood up. "I'm going."

Wil stood. "Jack, no, don't."

"Don't worry, I'm not totally defenseless."

"What do you mean?"

Illuminated by the penlight, he grinned and winked at her. "Well, I'm me…"

She shook her head in disbelief and terror.

"It's okay," he said, touching her face lightly with his fingertips. "'Once more unto the breach dear friends' and all that…"

He quickly kissed her on the mouth, spun round and announced to no one in particular, "I'm coming out."

The lights turned on.


	14. Chapter 14

**VENGEANCE**

**FOURTEEN**

Rose had never been quite sure as to how The Doctor controlled where the TARDIS landed.

Sometimes he was totally, totally, _totally_ off. So far off that it was funny, and when that happened he always accepted it gracefully and in good humor. Said it was part of the thrill; part of the adventure of being a Time Lord.

Sometimes he was spot on. Want to go to a baseball game? There they were, in the parking lot of the stadium, thirty minutes before the umpire yelled, "Play ball!"

Sometimes she thought that it was he who painted in broad strokes, telling his ship roughly when and where he wanted to go, but it was she, his TARDIS, who filled in the details – in essence contributed the particulars as to the exact place and time.

Rose hoped if nothing else their current destination would fall more towards the 'spot on' part of the spectrum – that is assuming he knew what he was doing, which is another thing she fervently hoped.

When they landed on the Shrake homeworld The Doctor had not, as was his usual habit when venturing somewhere potentially dangerous, used the monitor to display and inspect their surroundings. When Rose asked him about it, he shook his head.

"Whatever is out there – it's not going to change anything. Do you still want to come?"

She nodded resolutely. He nodded back and handed her several sets of nose and ear plugs.

"Extras, just in case…"

He inserted his plugs and watched as she inserted hers. Interestingly, they disappeared once _in situ._ Rose snorted in surprise.

"It's okay," he mouthed silently, exaggerating his words. "Time Lord tech – it's based on the chameleon circuit that I told you about earlier. They're still there, see?"

He pulled a plug out of his ear. It became green in his fingers. Then he replaced it and the object dutifully disappeared.

"It's so we won't look so dorky," he grinned as he mimed the words.

"Yeah, right," Rose giggled. She gazed fondly at his rumpled coat, wrinkled suit, untucked shirt, loosened tie, beat-up trainers, and geeky glasses, which had as usual slid down his nose. As she often did, she used her finger to push them back up on his face, and then she touched his hand.

"I'm ready if you are," she mouthed slowly.

At that moment, through her fingertips, she sensed his heartsbeat. His pulse was racing. Abruptly she realized he was scared – he'd managed to hide it from her until that very second. She pulled her hand away and stepped back, blinking. But before she could say anything else he was at the doors, flinging them open theatrically.

He turned and mouthed one last phrase at her before disappearing through the entrance. He needn't have bothered, she knew it by heart: "_Allons-y!_"


	15. Chapter 15

**VENGEANCE**

**FIFTEEN**

Jack had put on his coat before walking out the door, but other than his wristband, he was unarmed.

He didn't hear the door shut behind him but he resisted the urge to turn around and look. What was at his back was the past; over and done with. He now focused totally on what lay ahead of him, nothing else mattered.

He walked forward, carefully examining his surroundings. It was now daylight, a very bright daylight, and he blinked repeatedly as his eyes grew accustomed to the harsh glare.

The smell, the_ stench_ of the place nearly overcame him. It provided the first clue, though, as to where he was. The last time he'd been on the planet his PASGT Helmet had helped to protect him from the stink. He breathed in shallowly through his mouth and tried to suppress his gag reflex.

There were no sounds other than the wind.

Visually, he was in a large open area that was strewn with rubble. There were no remarkable buildings left standing or any other viable structures. There was nothing moving and as far as he could tell nothing alive.

He kept walking: always forward, never looking back.

Every once in awhile he was forced to stop because of the dry heaves. He'd lean over, hands on knees, and vomit. After a time there was little left to throw up and his eyes would sting with tears as his body violently but emptily retched. He was not embarrassed or humiliated – he'd been through worse during his heavy drinking years.

But he _was_ getting thirsty. 'Damn,' he thought to himself. 'I should've thought to bring some water along.'

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he saw a floating water bottle mysteriously materialize at his side. He stopped in wonder and turned.

There was Wil, standing, smiling, and extending the container to him.

His eyes filled with a different kind of tears, and he smiled back wanly as he gratefully accepted the bottle.

He took a few sips, shook his head and croaked through parched lips. "You shouldn't be here."

"Well, I am."

He resumed walking, she stayed at his side.

Her company annoyed him, yet made him unaccountably happy.

After a time, he asked: "How did you do that?"

"Oh, I read a book on being stealthy."

"Hmm…

"But I haven't heard you throw up."

"Yoga."

"Yoga?"

"Yoga."

"Wow. I should look into that when we get back."

"Jack, yoga would be nothing but good for you."

"Like your suggestion that I become a vegetarian?"

"Exactly."

"Hmm…"

They had continued walking in silence for quite a while when Jack saw something move up ahead.

He wasn't sure Wil had seen it.

"This is probably the point where you should turn around and go back."

"No, I don't think so, Jack."

"I could order you."

"You could."

He stopped and studied her. He always tried to choose his battles wisely.

"Let's compromise. For now you stay here. Let me go on by myself. Does that work?"

She nodded.

"Does that mean you'll stay put?"

"Yes."

"All right then, good girl." He winked and once again left her. This time after a few steps he turned his head and looked. She was indeed staying put.


	16. Chapter 16

**VENGEANCE**

**SIXTEEN**

Ven k'atesh could not believe the day's good fortune.

The criminal had come forth willingly.

It would be a righteous punishment and a good execution. Justice would be served. The dead and injured revenged. The universe would be put back into proper balance.

Unexpectedly, the criminal's associate had also come forth. Of course the female would never have been allowed to leave the planet, but Ven k'atesh had calculated the ruse acceptable, given the situation. Basic mammalian wiring was understood well enough to know that the male often protected the female – would even sacrifice himself to safeguard her.

But the deception apparently had been unnecessary. The female would be exterminated as well, after the criminal's execution. It would be a neat and tidy bit of business. The precision and efficiency were exquisitely pleasing.

Moreover, all indications were the criminal was unarmed. There was some honor in that as well, and Ven k'atesh reveled in the integrity embedded in the situation. It was all good, very good. And as a result of all these good things it would be over quickly. The Assistant Director had no interest in causing or prolonging pain and suffering. Vengeance did not require torture or torment or agony. It demanded justice.

Scuttling forward, Ven k'atesh touched the ritual execution device that had been a constant companion since the loss of the prisoner. The criminal was nearly there. The time had come.


	17. Chapter 17

**VENGEANCE**

**SEVENTEEN**

The Shrake that Jack approached was clearly injured. It was missing an upper appendage, its prothorax appeared damaged, and it had lost one of its compound eyes. The area where the eye should've been was sticky-wet with discharge.

The creature would've been grotesque without the mutilations, but with them it appeared monstrous.

At least the sight of it had taken his mind off the stench, although Jack's throat still burned with bile.

He was close enough now to speak to it. The Shrake had stopped moving towards him but Jack continued to walk, albeit more slowly, towards it.

"If I caused this hurt to you, I am sorry."

It was the very least he could say.

The creature fumbled for a moment and then emitted loud, computer-generated words from a mechanical device it carried on its body.

"Not you, not this."

Jack allowed himself the tiniest ray of hope. Communication was always good.

"I don't understand."

"You did not harm me."

The ray of hope blossomed.

"Then why am I here?"

"You… took the prisoner."

"Yes. My friend..."

"You took the prisoner and…" Again, the sounds were garbled. "…died."

Jack shook his head.

"I don't understand?"

"MANY DIED."

The words boomed, inflicting severe hurt to Jack's ears. He raised a hand tentatively to touch the side of his face and then examined his fingertips. There was blood. He was bleeding from his ear! The realization frightened him, who wouldn't be terrified by _that_?

"I am sorry," he said. "But my friend…"

"MANY, MANY DIED."

Jack's hope vanished.

"AS WILL YOU."

Jack watched curiously as the creature, almost as if in slow motion, fumbled with another, more sinister-looking device.

The Captain saw a flash and then felt a brief sensation of heat before he died.

A hundred meters behind him, Wil Beinert screamed in horror as she watched Jack's body drop to the ground. A split second later, the enormous sound and shockwave from the weapon hit her full force and she fell, badly stunned, blood seeping from her ears and nose.


	18. Chapter 18

**VENGEANCE**

**EIGHTEEN**

The Doctor and Rose had been on a hike of their own, although far less eventful. At least until now.

As they came up over a ridge, he flashed the "freeze" signal followed by the "crouch" sign. Rose immediately hit the ground and watched as the Time Lord yanked off his spectacles, pulled out a small collapsible spyglass and studied something in the distance.

He then turned his face to her. "I see" he signed "enemy" "hostage". Rose nodded.

"Stay low" "follow me" he added.

"I understand". Rose signaled.

The two kept as close to the ground as possible as they moved cautiously forward. Every so often The Doctor would signal "freeze" and they'd halt while he peered again through his spyglass.

They were getting close enough now so that she could make out the shapes. There was a large figure, on its own, and two smaller figures at differing distances from the first. The more remote of the smaller figures was stationary; the other had its upper appendages outstretched and was moving towards the larger one. The larger was also slowly and more awkwardly making its way towards it.

Rose couldn't quite put her finger on why it looked like a hostage situation, but she felt The Doctor had been correct in his description. There was something disturbing about the way the smaller form was walking with its "arms" outstretched as if in submission, while the larger one appeared to be exuding a significant amount of power and control. The whole scene implied there was something unfair, unbalanced and potentially violent going on.

The Doctor had stopped their progress again. He no longer peered through his spyglass but was instead rapidly looking back and forth between the three figures, which now that they were close enough Rose realized were probably a Shrake and perhaps two… What? Humanoids? She squinted hard at the supplicating form; it was still approaching what she'd decided was a Shrake.

She was having trouble making out colors – The Doctor had explained to her that the rarified atmosphere of the planet would negatively impact her ability to see clearly, and it was true. But there were aspects to the humanoid that looked eerily familiar. The way it… no, _he_ stood. The way he held his body and his head… The length of his arms, his legs… Rose suddenly gasped and nearly stood upright in shock.

"It's Jack!" she cried, although she knew The Doctor couldn't hear her. She looked at him and realized somehow he _had_ heard her, perhaps telepathically. Or perhaps he had just figured it out on his own, simultaneously.

Whichever, whatever, she could tell by the look of amazement on his face that he too had recognized his friend. And she was certain he was seeing the same look of astonishment upon her face.

"Follow me" he signaled. "Hurry up".


	19. Chapter 19

**VENGEANCE**

**NINETEEN**

It was true; The Doctor had not recognized his friend Jack Harkness any sooner than Rose. To his everlasting shame, it was true.

But he _had_ identified Ven k'atesh, and well before that point. In fact, he'd recognized his inquisitor almost immediately – and absurdly as well, if you think on it – because he'd never seen another Shrake; and as far as he knew, clichés aside, one alien of that damnable insectoid race probably looked the same as any other.

But it was not wishful thinking. It was definitive. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that it was Ven k'atesh he was now watching in the weird little pantomime being played out in front of him.

His hearts had leapt. It was Ven k'atesh… his… What? His friend? His amour? His adversary? His torturer? His executor? His savior?

He guiltily considered Rose, so brave and constant at his side. Would he discard her without reflection for Ven k'atesh?

Thankfully, he was not able to pursue that shameful line of thought because, as shocked as Rose had been when she first recognized Jack, The Doctor was mentally and physically _staggered_ by the knowledge. In fact, he felt his hearts might actually explode as he finally comprehended who it was who was standing, arms open wide in entreaty, in front of Ven k'atesh.

And for our Time Lord, time stood still while he recalled every word, every glance, every touch that he'd ever received from or given to Jack Harkness.

Time stood still while he remembered the acts of bravery, self-sacrifice, compassion and love that perpetually accompanied the man who he'd called his best friend; the man who had saved his life, and who had also endlessly, messily, brilliantly, complicated his life.

The Lord of Time, always so arrogant and proud, had disgraced, embarrassed and dishonored himself.

He was mortified. 'I should've sensed this,' he thought. 'I should've known the moment we arrived that Jack was here…

'That Jack and Wil_ are_ here_._'

His mind was now totally free of the sordid ties that had torturously bound it, and his thoughts ran clear and icy cold as he looked at Rose and signaled without thinking for her to "hurry" and "follow him" straight into the jaws of hell.

As the pair stood as one and began running down the hill towards their friend there was a brilliant flash of hot, blue-white light that seemed to surround Jack. A moment later they were both horrified to see him crumple to the ground.

"NO!!" The Doctor ripped out his earplugs so that he could hear the sound of his own screams.

"JACK!!"


	20. Chapter 20

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTY**

Ven k'atesh was pleased the execution had gone so well. The criminal had understood and acknowledged his offense. He'd even expressed regret, of a sort. That was more than could be expected. Those who had lost their lives had been avenged. _That_ had been the goal. Fortune had been with the Shrake this day.

The Assistant Director was about to deal with the female when there was an interruption – a strange, unexpected and yet familiar sound.

And then even more fantastic good fortune smiled down on the Shrake as Ven k'atesh was presented with an improbable sight: the former prisoner and his female associate screeching and rushing towards their fallen comrade.

Ven k'atesh didn't need to think and never hesitated. The ritual execution device had a stun setting that would be adequate to disable the approaching creatures; probably with a single shot.

The weapon was aimed and discharged; the two fell heavily to the ground.

Ven k'atesh called to the backup agents that had been lurking in the shadows of the rubble.

"Bring those two back to the compound, and go fetch the other female."

"What about the executed criminal?" The Assistant Director was asked.

Ven k'atesh considered only for a moment. "Leave him for the vermin to devour."

It was a good day, a very good day indeed, for the Shrake


	21. Chapter 21

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYONE**

Dying was often easier than living. At least for Jack Harkness.

And in this case, as in many others, revival was more painful than demise.

As he gasped for breath Jack could still feel what was left of the plasma burns on his body.

The burns were healing, but not quickly enough. The pain was excruciating. The old adage 'death by 1000 cuts' didn't come close.

It was dark and cold. What was left of his clothes was in tatters; he ripped the remaining shreds of fabric from his skin and stood shakily.

Over the years he'd trained his mind to force his body to move ASAP when he resuscitated. Experience had proven time and time again that it was wise to get far away from the death scene as quickly and quietly as possible.

He started running towards the area where he thought he'd left Wil. When he arrived at the spot he found the water bottle, but no sign of her.

He was grateful for the water and drank deeply as he evaluated his options.

If she had survived, she would've likely gone back to the house. He wasn't sure why she would've left him, but maybe she'd had no choice.

Otherwise, either she hadn't survived or she'd been taken by the Shrake.

He decided the house was his best bet. Not only in case Wil was there but hopefully he'd also find clothing, food, more water, and if the Shrake were really stupid, weapons.

It turned out the Shrake were really stupid.

The house was still standing, the lights were on, the vicinity appeared deserted, and the front door stood wide open. Jack walked inside like he owned the place, which he did, shut the door behind him and resisted sinking to his knees in pain and relief.

He was freezing and exhausted. His body and brain felt as if they'd been wrung like a sponge. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to focus.

Staying in high alert mode in case he was confronted by an unpleasant surprise, Jack went to his duffel in the kitchen and pulled on his black shirt and pants. He decanted his ballistic vest from the bag, shook it out and put it on.

Feeling a bit better, he raided the cupboards for a couple of hermetically sealed power bars, which he woofed down in about five seconds flat. He drank some more water and then sat on a chair while he put on his field boots.

Next, he conducted a full survey of the house, looking everywhere for Wil. There was no sign of her. He was disappointed but not terribly surprised. During his long run back he'd decided the odds were slim that he would find her there; she would have never left him behind like that.

He walked to one of the armory vaults and started grabbing conventional ballistic weapons. He stuck four loaded semi-automatic pistols and several spare magazines into his pockets. Then he selected a P-90, clipped it onto his vest, grabbed a few extra magazines for it and pocketed those as well.

Shrugging a few times to test its weight, he rebalanced his vest and decided that he was adequately armed. But then he reconsidered and took as many fragmentation and incendiary grenades as he could carry. They'd served him well on his previous visit…

Jack didn't have his PASGT Helmet, so he rummaged the closets for a black cap and finally found one. It had "FBI" on the front in yellow letters. Jack snorted as he put it on.

He went back to the kitchen, ate another power bar, and considered his situation.

He was armed for bear, to be sure, and he liked it. No one was around to tell him what to do, nor did he need to solicit anyone's approval; so it was all up to him, and he was going to either find Wil and/or kill the buggers who'd murdered her sister and perhaps killed her as well. Either way, he felt he would be doing what he did best: blowing stuff up and killing bad guys.

And there was no doubt in his mind the Shrake were bad guys: the cause of a boatload of pain, suffering and death; the root of all evil.

It was officially payback time.

He leaned over, snatched what he called a "Tosh scanner" (life signs, energy signatures; you name it, it'll detect it) and his aviator shades out of his duffel, put them in his breast pockets and then kicked the bag vehemently across the floor.

He was almost ready.


	22. Chapter 22

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYTWO**

The Doctor opened his eyes and knew instantly and exactly where he was.

Well, at least the 'instantly' part of that statement is correct. He immediately recognized that he was in a (surprise!) Shrake prison cell.

As for 'exactly' – he thought it was a lot like the cell he'd been held in before: tiny, over lit, empty and freezing cold.

But to be honest, although it felt very familiar, he mentally shrugged and admitted to himself that it might not be the _exact_ same cell.

Oh well, so much for symmetry…

He gently moved his hand and touched his body. Amazingly, he was still wearing his clothes! His coat, his suit, his shirt… He wiggled his toes – even his shoes!

He sat up.

In his pockets were his glasses and… AND his sonic screwdriver.

Now that was just plain _weird_.

Amazing, but weird.

He activated the sonic and pointed it at the door. Several times, he pointed it at the door.

Nada. Zilch. Nuls points.

He wasn't all that surprised. 'Dampening field,' he said to himself as he put the sonic away for the time being.

He thought about Rose. She was likely there too, somewhere.

"Rose?" he spoke the word.

"Rose!" That time more loudly.

And then…

"ROSE!!"

Again, nothing.

But then he remembered the ear plugs. He'd taken his out. Had Rose? Maybe she hadn't when…

"Oh God," he gasped raggedly as he recalled the last few appalling moments before they'd been stunned.

"Jack?"

His eyes filled with tears.

"Oh Jack, what were you doing here?" He frowned deeply.

"'Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world,' what in the _hell_ were you doing in mine?"

He stood up, walked to one of the identical walls, pressed his forehead firmly against its cool, solid surface, and remembered.

He remembered the shape, size and color of the blast that had enveloped his friend.

He remembered the vaguely human-shaped blackened cinder of a body that had fallen to the ground.

'Burned beyond recognition…' That's how some blasted authority with some blasted investigative unit in some blasted country on some blasted planet would've described it. 'Identified through dental records…'

The Doctor's stomach twisted and howled.

"What were you doing here?" he asked again. He was talking to Jack; he was talking to himself.

"Wait, I know the answer to that. You were here because of me. They lured you here because you rescued me. They didn't want me, they wanted you. I'm a mistake." He angrily punched the wall with his fist.

"I'm an afterthought." He punched it again. Harder.

"I'm icing on their bloody cake." And he punched the wall a third time, using all of his strength.

Did you know? A Time Lord from Gallifrey is incredibly strong. Our Doctor is usually very gentle. He takes great care to keep his strength in check for fear of unintentionally harming someone. Only rarely does he use anything _close_ to his full strength.

And his unreserved full strength? Hardly ever, almost never.

But when he does, it can be dreadful. He has the potential to exert more power with just his body alone than some, if not many, lethal weapons.

Surprised? Remember the shear force implied in some of the other names by which he is known across the cosmos: 'The Oncoming Storm', 'The Bringer of Darkness' and 'The Destroyer of Worlds'.

How do you think he got those names?

Not by sitting around, twiddling dials and pulling levers.

That's our 'gentle' Doctor.

'More powerful than a locomotive'? That's nothing compared to a Time Lord.

And then make it An Angry Time Lord, well…

With the third blow The Doctor put a hole clean through the ten inch super-reinforced wall.

"Whoops," he muttered, jumping back, surprising himself.

Then, hearing an odd sound he cautiously moved forward, leaned down, and peered through the hole.

There was Wil Beinert, peering back at him.

"Wil!"

"Doctor!"

"How are you?"

"I'm okay, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine!"

"Is your hand all right?"

"Uh," he looked down at his scraped and bloody knuckles. "It's fine."

"Good. Stand back, Doctor."

"What?"

"Stand back. I'm a Taekwondo black belt, remember?"

"Oh, right."

With one good kick from Wil, the fist-sized hole The Doctor had created became roughly sheep-sized. With a second kick, it was large enough to allow the six foot Wil Beinert to fairly comfortably clamber through.

"Molto bene!" exclaimed the Doctor as Wil unfolded and stood before him.

The two embraced warmly.

"Where's Rose?" Wil asked.

"I don't know; she's here somewhere I reckon."

"Oh," Wil had been hoping for better news – news something like Rose was safe back on earth. _Damn it._

"What are the two of you doing here?" she asked him.

"Long story."

"Oh. Okay. Do you know what happened to Jack?"

The Doctor grimly shook his head. "I think he may be dead." The ghastly image of a charred body flashed through his mind. "I mean really dead."

"No," said Wil. "He's not."

"How do you know that?"

"When they carted me off they left him there."

"And…?"

"And, he's alive, I know it. Why are you talking so funny?"

"Nose plugs!" The Doctor pulled out a spare set. "Do you want…?"

"No."

"Then how…?"

"Yoga."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything else she changed the subject.

"Do you know where the Shrake are?"

"Ah, now _that's_ the million dollar question," he replied. "I don't have a clue. But you'd think by now they'd have, erm, noticed us."

"Yep."

There was a muffled explosion. They both instinctively turned towards it.

"Ah," said The Doctor. "But then again, maybe they're busy with something else."

"Yep."

There were two more explosions, louder this time, one right after the other. And then a third, closer still.

Wil looked at The Doctor levelly, "I think that's our ride."

"Yep, best to stand away from the door."


	23. Chapter 23

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYTHREE**

The Doctor was correct.

The cell door blew open a few seconds later and although he was wearing dark aviator sunglasses and had a scarf covering his nose and mouth, it was instantly apparent that Jack Harkness was standing there amidst the dust and rubble.

The Doctor saw Jack's cap, took Wil's hand in his own and remarked in a high, squeaky little voice: "Oh look, honey, it's the FBI come to rescue us!"

But then he realized who was standing behind Jack.

Rose squeezed past the still bristling Captain Harkness and flung herself into The Doctor's open arms.

"Oh! I'm so glad to see you!" she cried, "and Wil!" Rose pulled the other woman in towards her and the three engaged in what only could be described as a group hug.

"Uh, I'm sorry to interrupt the love fest," growled Jack. "But we really need to leave."

The Doctor looked up, smiling. "Right! Hello, Jack! Lovely of you to drop in like this!"

Jack pulled the scarf down from his face. He wasn't smiling. "Who else did you expect would come rescue you?"

"Rescue? What rescue?" The Doctor turned and tilted his head towards the gap Wil and he had knocked through the wall. "We weren't doing so badly."

For the briefest moment a kinder, gentler version of the Captain flashed across Jack's face as he studied the Time Lord. "What are you doing here?" he asked the Gallifreyan in wonder.

"Long story."

The moment ended.

"Doctor," Jack took off his sunglasses; his eyes were coldly menacing and totally humorless. "We're running out of time. It would be very helpful if you have a way to get us off this planet. Do you?"

The Time Lord, so accustomed to deciphering the thoughts and emotions of his companions, looked at his friend and perceived only a blank wall.

Jack was hiding something, he realized; purposefully closing off his mind from detection or scrutiny. The Doctor had never encountered such a formidable blocking ability before, at least not from a human, and maybe not from any sentient being.

Jack had been practicing, and this was no game.

Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, The Doctor moved towards Jack and the demolished door.

"Oh yeah," he responded. "Saddle up and follow me."

As Rose and Wil approached, Jack handed both of them a pistol. "Rose, you're next, then Wil. I'm on our six."


	24. Chapter 24

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYFOUR**

It was easy enough to get outside the compound. The Time Lord simply followed the path of death and destruction that Jack Harkness had left in his wake.

'Is this what Jack was hiding?' he wondered. 'It's bad, but it's not like I didn't know he was capable of it.'

The Doctor was using his sonic screwdriver to help him ping the TARDIS. His ship waited less than a kilometer away, intact and unharmed. The path ahead appeared clear.

He heard automatic weapon fire behind him and knew that Jack was busy. He resisted the urge to stop, and kept moving forward as quickly as he could. He could hear the footsteps of Rose and Wil following him; he could hear their rapid breathing as they kept up with his pace.

Then he heard another set of heavier footsteps as Jack rejoined the group. The Doctor slowed down but Jack growled, "Keep moving!" and so he renewed his speed.

Looking down, focusing on the sonic and his TARDIS, he did not perceive what was to his left until he heard Jack hiss, "Nine o'clock!"

A large group of dark, humanoid figures was racing towards them.

Jack moved immediately to The Doctor's side, pushing a semi-automatic pistol into his hand.

"Here, take this. Protect the women. Get to the TARDIS. I'll meet you there."

The Time Lord pushed the pistol away. "Jack, I don't need this."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't; really, I don't." He paused and gently pressed the length of his sonic screwdriver against Jack's vest, against the upper left side of Jack's chest.

"My sonic can do more than you know. We'll be safe, I promise."

The Doctor tenderly, soothingly, slowly spread wide the fingers that were holding the screwdriver against the Captain's chest and gently touched Jack's heart.

"Just don't be late," the Time Lord whispered.


	25. Chapter 25

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYFIVE**

Jack didn't know who they were.

And he didn't the hell care. They were working with the Shrake and that's all the information he needed as he crouched low, waiting for the dark horde to approach.

He had a handful of grenades left, a loaded semi-automatic pistol, the cartridges in his P-90 plus one more magazine, and, if it got really interesting, the bent-bladed Ghurka kukri knife in his boot. All that should be more than enough to buy his friends the time they'd need to reach the TARDIS.

He wasn't sure it'd be enough to get _him_ there, but in the end, that wasn't what this was about.

The death, the carnage, the destruction. He wasn't really Jack Harkness any more. He was an implement, a tool to be used to save the lives of Wil, Rose, and his precious Doctor.

To be used and perchance discarded.

Upon entering the compound and scanning for life signs Jack had been surprised to detect multiple humans. He had no idea who he would discover when he crashed through the first cell door; the fact that it was Rose Tyler had, frankly, astonished him.

"What in the fuck are you doing here?!" he'd wanted to ask her.

But he had kept his cool. Even Jack-the-killing-machine possessed some vanity. He mentally shrugged off the shock and filed away the questions for later. Wordlessly, he'd lightly touched Rose's shoulder, and then motioned for her to follow him. She'd obeyed silently, immediately, and that had made him glad. Glad, you see, because he had spent much of his life alone – even when he was surrounded by others – he kept remote, removed, detached. He'd never considered himself a leader and was perplexed about how it had come to pass; no doubt it'd had something to do with encountering The Doctor.

It was almost as if others believed him to be in charge, and thus he was.

However it had happened, he found he liked it; it fulfilled him.

For that reason he had been gladdened when Rose signaled she'd understood and would follow his command.

At the same time he'd realized he would have to hide his terrible secret from the Time Lord, who he now knew was most certainly in one of the other cells. Jack understood that he'd been given a gift: a few moments to fortify himself and safeguard something that he knew he could not, must not, share – especially with the man whose beautiful brown eyes gazed so effortlessly into his soul.

The man who he loved more than life itself. The man for whom he would willingly die; the man for whom he _had_ willingly died. The man for whom he would walk, laughing, through the gates of hell. _The man for whom he would kill._

And yet he couldn't help but wonder, again, what The Doctor had been doing there. Had the Time Lord followed them to the planet? Something in Jack's mind told him that wasn't the case. Instead, his mind dredged up an image – an image of The Doctor more dead than alive, alone in a cell and wrapped in a ratty old blanket. On The Doctor's face, in that image, was a look Jack had never seen before; it was a look of dependency, of reliance and neediness. But the look was not meant for Jack, oh no…

It suddenly dawned on Jack that he had extracted the half-dead, blanketed Time Lord, had rescued him, but he hadn't _saved_ him.

'Well, damn, ' he thought, 'he's as vulnerable as the rest of us, and I love him all the more for it.'

Pulled back to the present, he gauged the enemy's distance and nodded almost contentedly. Once again, he had brilliantly pulled off a spectacular rescue; sometimes Jack even managed to impress himself.

He had no doubt that his friends would be safe. In that last second, he had allowed The Doctor to see just enough…

Jack grinned, for the first time in ages, as he hurled a fragmentation grenade at his adversaries. Surely, this was what he was born to do.

It was extremely effective but, as expected, did not halt their advance. And now the element of surprise was expended. The shit was officially about to hit the fan…

'Bloody hell,' he thought as he removed his sunglasses, throwing them to the ground; he ripped off the scarf that was covering his nose and mouth, and discarded it as well. 'If the fuckers are gonna kill me, I at least want them to see my face.'

He tossed another grenade, and then another. Stupidly, the oncoming enemy had not scattered. Annoyingly, they continued to proceed forward, toward him and those he defended.

Jack was out of grenades. He stood upright, widened his stance, bellowed, "WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!" at the top of his lungs and began firing the P-90.


	26. Chapter 26

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYSIX**

Ven k'atesh had watched as defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory.

A chance synergy of bravery and stupidity, heroism and hubris, adaptability and rigidity, had fed the defeat.

Or had it been chance?

The Time Lord, the _former_ prisoner, had repeatedly displayed uncommon courage and compassion during his previous incarceration. He obviously had been highly valued by others, just as Ven k'atesh had come to value him – not enough to spare his life when the time had come – but valued nonetheless.

The fact that such an individual had been surrounded by other equally courageous and compassionate beings should not have come as a shock.

Had the Shrake been doomed from the beginning? Ven k'atesh well understood that seizing the Time Lord had been a disastrous mistake, and upon that error had subsequently been laid many other comparably terrible mistakes.

It was difficult to imagine how it might have been otherwise, but Ven k'atesh was intelligent enough to know there _had_ been alternatives – alternatives that did not involve brutality, disrespect, or deception. Those alternatives were scenarios of life instead of death.

Such alternatives would have been unfamiliar if not unimaginable to the Shrake.

Known for their severity and inflexibility, for the Shrake to admit the mistake, which Ven k'atesh now so clearly recognized as having occurred, would have been inconceivable.

Since time immemorial their commonly held beliefs included the appreciation of retaliation and retribution, the approval of obstinacy and immovability, and the admiration of ruthlessness and cruelty.

Not the most conducive of survival tactics in an increasingly crowded and interconnected galaxy…

And what lessons might the Shrake have learned from all this? Ven k'atesh feared the answer was: none.

But what had Ven k'atesh learned? Much.

Was it too late?

'Yes,' Ven k'atesh thought sadly. 'Yes.'


	27. Chapter 27

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYSEVEN**

As the Captain had learned from repeated experience, weird things go through your head when you're about to die.

Jack had done the math. He knew there was no way he was going to kill the entire enemy force that was now bearing down on him. And even if by some miracle he did, well… he still believed he was going to die.

"'Spray and pray' or 'professional assassin mode'?" he asked himself with almost preternatural calmness as he started firing his P-90.

The former was easier and kind of more fun, but it wasted cartridges. He didn't have a lot of cartridges to waste and so he decided to fire in short, well-aimed bursts.

For Jack, there was nothing quite like firing a P-90, or for that matter any submachine gun. It was, literally, a turn-on. The power, the heat, the sound, the smell, the recoil, the _physicality_ was undeniably sensual. Jack was unashamed to admit he got off on it. And, hopped up on adrenalin and testosterone, he was damned good at it as well – he was almost surgically blowing members of the approaching horde to bits.

Unfortunately they were trying to do the same to him.

His vest took a couple of hits as he inserted his last magazine. That stung, but didn't hurt nearly as much as the one that got him in the brachialis muscle of his right upper arm.

"Shit!" he swore as he switched the gun to his left hand and continued firing, trying not to count down the fifty cartridges the magazine held.

Painfully, he fumbled with his right hand, which was now covered in blood, for his Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol. As the submachine gun sputtered and died, he quickly dumped it and in one fluid motion tossed the pistol from his right hand to his left, with little delay in his fire.

But he only had nine rounds in the pistol, and suddenly, insanely, out of the blue, he realized that he very much wanted to live to see the faces of his friends again. Of his precious Time Lord again. His choice was clear: he could stand and fight, and die; or he could run away.

"Hell," he said to no one in particular. "I've got nothing to prove here."

He turned and ran.


	28. Chapter 28

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYEIGHT**

And what of the Voord, the creatures that now were attempting to kill our heroic, somewhat flawed, and perhaps slightly suicidal, Captain?

The Doctor had once pissed them off royally with his meddling. At least that was how they'd perceived his interfering behavior – he'd stuck his nose where it hadn't been wanted or appreciated, along with the noses of his companions Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton, and his beloved granddaughter, Susan Foreman.

The society of Marinus had been a stagnant, dead culture overseen by a vast and powerful machine intelligence that managed and controlled all thought and behavior across the entire planet.

The Voord were rebelling against that oppressive and stilted machine-conscience when The Doctor arrived on the scene and took sides against them in their dirty little war. He and his companions teamed up with the artificial intelligence in order to sublimate the Voord and terminate their revolt. In this they were successful.

In the Voord's opinion, the Time Lord had taken sides without taking the _time_ to investigate what was really going on. They never forgave him for his arrogance, egotism and self-righteousness.

At least that's how the Voord had seen it.

And the Voord have long memories indeed.

Besides having long memories, they also tended to hang on to their grudges. They were more than happy to join with the Shrake, and all the others, when they'd learned of the hunt for the Time Lord.

Plus, the Voord were a long-lived and patient race. If it didn't work out this time, that's okay. There'd be other opportunities…

There are two great ironies here.

The first is that although Jack Harkness was now their immediate prey, if it'd been _him_ instead of The Doctor who had been confronted by that distant situation, it is more than likely that the Captain would've chosen differently – he would've, if forced, sided with the Voord. Jack the iconoclast, Jack the radical, Jack the activist, Jack the belligerent, Jack the revolutionary, Jack the easily outraged, would have had a hard time swallowing a society whose thought processes were controlled by a machine. If nothing else, the Voord and their insurgence would have intrigued him.

The second, and far greater irony, is The Doctor himself was not altogether displeased that at the end of his quest on Marinus the machine-conscience was destroyed – our Doctor does not really believe living, sentient, beings should be ruled by an artificial intelligence. At the time he'd found the concept distasteful, to say the least, but he repressed those feelings. As to why he chose to intervene… he'd long ago accepted that unlike the rest of his race he was hard-wired to interfere in situations that seemed to warrant it. _That_ was who he was and what he did…

And as we already know, he rarely if ever second-guesses himself, and very much like our heroic Captain, The Doctor typically doesn't dwell obsessively on the past. It is likely that once he left Marinus he never gave it, or what might transpire there in the future, another thought.


	29. Chapter 29

**VENGEANCE**

**TWENTYNINE**

"Run!" screamed The Doctor, oblivious to the motivations of the Voord.

The sounds of multiple explosions and rapid gunfire were uncomfortably close behind them.

The TARDIS was up ahead and he fumbled briefly with the key before opening its doors.

He tossed Wil his sonic as he raced to the console. "If you see something that isn't Jack coming towards us, point it and press the button – and for God's sake don't point it at one of us or at yourself! Or the TARDIS! Or Jack!"

Wil looked confusedly between the small, slender tool and the large, menacing pistol she was holding in her other hand.

"Trust me!" he yelled over his shoulder.

"And guard the entrance!"

He was mumbling to himself as he kept one eye on the monitor and fiddled with various controls on the console.

"Hah!" he announced triumphantly as the TARDIS finally came to life and raised her external shields.

The Doctor had ever-so-briefly seen into Jack's soul during that final moment. He'd gotten a quick glimpse past the impressive self-erected barrier obscuring the Captain's thoughts, and he had observed just one thing, just one word: FLEE.

"Now where the hell is he…?" The Doctor was beginning to feel extremely impatient.

Wil called out, "I think I see him now!"

And to be sure, there was Jack Harkness running head-down, shoulders hunched, full blast towards the ship; a large group of shadowy black-garbed humanoids was hot on his heals, howling madly and firing nasty ballistic weapons at him.

In a final, desperate act Jack whirled around mid-stride and in a perfect ballet _tours en l'air_ threw his pistol at his pursuers.

"DOCTOR!" shouted Rose from the door.

"I SEE HIM!" screamed The Doctor.

"LOWER THE FORCE FIELD!" yelled Wil.

Jack tumbled violently through the entrance, his progress 'assisted' by several shots impacting the back of his vest. Wil leaned down, grabbed his arms and yanked him further inside the ship. Under her breath as she dragged him across the floor she was muttering in rhythm with each tug: "Right, Jack… 'I'm on our six,' Jack… 'Protect the women,' Jack… You're a crazy son-of-a-bitch, Jack."

Projectiles were pinging off the walls of the TARDIS and ricocheting around the control room.

Somehow, Rose managed to get the doors closed without getting hit. The Doctor ducked and snarled something in Gallifreyan under his breath, which he'd prefer not to have repeated in polite company, as he continued pulling levers and spinning dials on the console panel.

From the floor, Jack looked up at Wil. There was fear and pain in his eyes; mostly fear. "We need to leave," he barely whispered. "Level four. Boom." He added before passing out.

Her eyes opened wide in sudden comprehension. He _was_ a crazy son-of-a-bitch.

"GO!" Wil shrieked at The Doctor. "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"Aye, aye," The Doctor slapped a big blue console button.

The TARDIS was gone.

And the planet exploded.


	30. Chapter 30

**VENGEANCE**

**THIRTY**

"I have to agree with Owen," Ianto concurred. "Behaving unilaterally and xenophobically doesn't do Torchwood any good."

They all stared at him. Ianto wasn't exactly known for using big words.

But then Tosh nodded thoughtfully. "Torchwood was once much larger, you know. There were numerous branches and many employees; we cooperated more with outside agencies…"

Gwen interrupted her. "It's not earth allies we need so much, I think, but alien allies. Although it seems Jack might not be thrilled with the idea?"

"Who knows what Jack thinks. And who cares!" scoffed Owen. "The point is, adding more terrans isn't really all that attractive is it? I mean, _we_ don't know what the hell we're doing half the time, what makes you think anyone else from this flipping planet would do any better? We need to start identifying and cultivating alien collaborators, regardless of what Captain Jack Harkness thinks."

Ianto shook his head, "We can't go at it antagonistically like that. We need Jack and Torchwood needs Jack. There's a reason, I'm sure, he's kept Torchwood small and refrained from developing associations with alien races."

"Yeah," Owen smiled ruefully. "It's so he can maintain control – the bigger it is, the harder it gets, you know?"

Ianto smiled back at him sweetly. "Was that a _double entendre_?"

"No, that was the truth. It's way more difficult to keep control of your secrets when you're associating with loads of people. Jack barely manages now, with the four of us." He suddenly remembered Wil and corrected himself guiltily. "I mean with the five of us. And he has a _shitload_ of secrets."

They all nodded.

"Well," said Gwen, "we seem to be in agreement about one thing. We need to start working on developing 'partnerships', as they say in the corporate world. If for no other reason than to help us in situations like we're in right now, when Jack has gone missing…"

"Speaking of that," Tosh interjected. "Something is happening on the Shrake homeworld. I think a time vortex just opened."

The group turned as one and looked at the main display screen.

The cute little rectangular blue box icon had vanished.

A second later the little round symbol representing the planet blinked out of existence.

"Oh my God," all four of them exclaimed simultaneously.


	31. Chapter 31

**VENGEANCE**

**THIRTYONE **

"Jack… Jack… Jack…" The Doctor's voice chanted, over and over.

Jack Harkness opened his eyes only to see the Time Lord's face swimming above his head.

"Ugh," Jack groaned, closing his eyes tightly. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Not on my control room floor you're not." The Doctor took Jack's hand between his smooth, strong fingers and squeezed it gently, "You're going to be okay."

The Time Lord gazed at his friend's face; he could sense the man's pain as if it were his own.

"Jack," he continued, tightening his grip. "What did you do?"

"I set the self-destruct."

"Jack, it destroyed the entire planet."

"Yeah, I know. I made a promise…"

Jack's hand relaxed and his face softened as he fell back into a deep sleep.

And that's all that was ever said of it between the two friends.

No one aside from Jack had known the safe house had a level _four_ self-destruct.

When Jack had contemplated the capacity in the past, which intentionally wasn't very often, he'd not even considered it a literal self-destruct. It was too horrible in concept and practice to have such a banal name; it was too final and too unfathomable. But he'd never doubted its necessity.

And in his mind he'd just been proven correct.

The Doctor, on the other hand, and in retrospect, had come up with his own name for it. But the name was in Gallifreyan and not translatable into English, or indeed into any other known language of the universe.

It was a terrible name.

The Doctor also knew very well that Jack Harkness was capable of such actions. He'd counted on that aptitude in the past and would likely rely on it in the future. Although what Jack had wrought that day was unforgivable, from the Time Lord's perspective, The Doctor would indeed forgive his friend; his distress only a moment's tantrum in the long, long morning of their lives. Jack had been, after all, only fulfilling a promise.

And Captain Jack Harkness always kept his promises.

Needless to say, as The Doctor sat on the TARDIS floor, cross-legged, holding Jack's hand and looking into his sleeping face, he imagined his friend might have some soul-searching to do after he got better. How that self-examination might manifest, The Doctor had no idea, and in the end he didn't care.

This was not because he was heartless, but because the Time Lord had been served up his own plate of soul-search stew. He'd made many enemies during his long, eventful and complicated life. The fact that adversaries from lifetimes ago, literally, could return, hunt down, and cause serious harm to his current friends and companions gave him pause. He did not desire to be alone, but how could he in good faith continue to place his loved ones in such danger? The villains and monsters he'd accumulated in 900 years were prodigious in number, and that number kept growing – almost on a daily basis.

Was there an imaginable alternative?

The Doctor wondered whether the time had come to investigate if, as he suspected, living alone was the ultimate exploration of inner truth. It was one thing to see yourself as an intricate web of changing relationships to others, to society, to material things, and places. It was quite something else to see simply _yourself_, to be your own companion, to talk bravely to yourself and answer back honestly. _To change purely from within instead of as a response to change in others._

Had the time come to find out if his default state was something other than to exist _only_ in the thoughts and reactions of those around him?

'Is it time?' he wondered. He tugged at his left ear and glanced sidelong at Rose. His companion stood, hair hanging in her eyes, looking intently down at the TARDIS console.

'No,' he decided, 'not quite yet…'


	32. Epilogue

**VENGEANCE**

**EPILOGUE**

Back at Torchwood, Jack had recovered from his injuries quickly, as only someone who was almost entirely immortal could.

He had gathered his team, along with his friends The Doctor and Rose Tyler, on the roof of the Millennium Centre for a memorial service.

It was a moonless night, and the stars shined brilliantly against their inky backdrop.

High above the waters of the Bristol Channel there were fireworks – they were Jack's doing, of course – beautiful collections of pink palm-shell, dazzling orange kamuro, and brilliant white spider effects lit up the midnight sky and reflected off the waves below.

Jack recalled the last time they'd gathered there, beneath the stars but under very different circumstances: Wil had been on a different planet, in a different galaxy, and her sister had still been alive.

The Captain had wearied of his call to duty. There had been so many deaths… so much destruction. Perhaps he had tired of Torchwood. 'Perhaps,' he thought, bones quaking at the very idea, 'Torchwood has become tired of me.'

The group stood and watched mostly in silence, articulating only the occasional muted "ooh!" or "ah!" during a particularly pleasing pyrotechnic explosion.

After the fireworks ended, Jack cleared his throat, took Wil's hand and spoke.

"I never got the chance to meet your sister, but if she was anything like you, and I'm sure that she was, she was amazing, precious and unique. I love her because I know little sisters play a big role in how their older sisters turn out. And I thank her for that," he looked deeply into Wil's eyes. "I thank her for who you are."

He inhaled slowly and then raised his face towards the heavens, a minister preaching to his flock. "The world is a lesser place for her loss, and we are all diminished by her death. But as long as I am alive, I will not forget her, and as long as she is not forgotten, she will be with us. I know that my words are totally inadequate. I am so sorry for your loss."

Jack lowered his gaze, brought Wil's hand up to his lips, kissed it softly, and then released it.

"Thank you," Wil whispered, the dim light painting the tear streaks on her face silver. She turned and walked slowly to the long, spiral staircase leading back to the Hub.

All the others followed her, except for Jack and The Doctor.

The two stood silently for a time, each lost in his own thoughts.

"Jack, it's time for us to leave."

"Yeah, I know."

There was another long pause.

"Doctor, aren't you going to ask me to come with you?"

"No."

"Funny, because I would've told you yes."

"I know. That's why I didn't ask."

The Doctor walked away, leaving Jack alone beneath the silent canopy of stars.

**FINIS**

"_Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."  
__Romans  
__12:19_

--

**Afterword**

_Dear faithful reader, Such ends the third part of my second trilogy. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Are you bored with me? With my stories? With Wil? Would you like to read more? Take a moment to let me know! And to those of you who took the time: THANK YOU! You are the wind beneath my wings (really)._

_The sequel to 'Vengeance' is 'Prodigals' -- if you're wondering what happens next, read on!_

_ps thanks mom. i miss you._


End file.
